Friday, January 4, 2008

You Know Your Birthplace Is Syracuse When

 from November 1 until March 31 the mittens come off only when you brush your teeth.

Mittens

I ought to clarify that she's wearing them not because the house is freezing cold (believe me, we send exorbitant amounts of money to National Grid each month to ensure that this drafty rental is toasty warm throughout the winter) but because she likes to wear mittens, indoors and out.

Bookmark and Share Posted by at January 4, 2008 7:45 PM to Orange
Comments

Oh to have your problems. Some of Nola's most profound meltdowns have been over the putting-on and wearing of the mittens. Like most things confining she proclaims "too tight," and then we are finished.

Posted by: jenwingard at January 4, 2008 8:12 PM

Could be N.'s California-Texas genealogy? Or this might be a sign that we should get our kids together one day soon so they can influence each other for a couple of hours.

Posted by: Derek at January 4, 2008 9:19 PM

We wonder at the difference b/n our Virginia-born children and the one Syracuse-born.

The Syracuse-born being the most contrary and cold-blooded of them all (prefers NO JACKET AT ALL, thank you, even when the mercury's at 2).

He will forever be known in our family as the one true northerner--not the best of monikers in a family of southerners. ;)

Posted by: madeline at January 5, 2008 9:44 AM

D. and I are Michiganiacs, but I think she prefers a more moderate climate than the one we are in. Is., too, although she is too young to make the preference definitive. Ph. is the one of us who will venture into the frigid outdoors underdressed. But he is a teenager, so it's not as much a conversation we have as a looplooploop I find myself caught in: "Bundle up! You'll catch a cold!"

And then, he never catches a cold (I have three of them for every one he gets).

Posted by: Derek at January 5, 2008 10:59 AM

I watch with great horror and amusement as my neighbor's teenage children do all manner of crazy things in the snow without proper clothes. The most remarkable: her oldest son (18) frequently brings the trash out the back door in his shirtsleeves and ONE UNTIED BOOT, hopping precariously down the stoop steps to hurl the bag into the can. And then hop hop hops back up the steps.

Posted by: madeline at January 5, 2008 1:22 PM

Ha! One boot, eh? I'll have to share that with Ph. He has been known to dress his feet down (i.e., remove socks) rather than dress them up (i.e., add shoes) well into the early frosts of September and October. And as you might expect, I mutter an ineffective (if it was heard at all): "You'll catch a cold."

Posted by: Derek at January 5, 2008 3:52 PM